Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Question: As an actress playing a character who’s not inside of the investigation, but is affected by it, did you find that you had a different relationship to the material than Mark Ruffalo did? He was somebody who became obsessed with the actual workings of the case, and I’m assuming that Jake Gyllenhaal did as well.Chloe Sevigny: Yes.

Q: Did you find that, since you weren’t involved with that, you were watching these guys get into the strange nitty gritty of this sickness?CS: Definitely. And, before I started the picture, a girlfriend of mine who was obsessed with Zodiac when she was a teenager, as lots of alternative girls probably were [laughs], gave me a copy of her book. I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll read it and try to get into where my husband in the movie’s mind was, what he was obsessed with and what he was dealing with, day in and day out,’ and I couldn’t. I got almost through half of it and I had to put it down. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to read about this anymore.’ [Laughs] That’s probably how Melanie is. She doesn’t want to hear about it anymore. It’s this morbid subject. Her kids are threatened. I feel like that’s probably how she was. She just wanted it out of her face. She didn’t even want to read the newspaper articles. She’d heard way too much about it already. I feel like that was probably her attitude. That’s what I did, not because I’m lazy or anything. [Laughs] But, I truly was disturbed reading it. Although I was alternative, I was never obsessed with Manson or Zodiac, or whatever else kids like that get into.

Q: Do you think some of the retro clothes and the big glasses helped you and made you feel more like you were of the period? Does the wardrobe affect you when you act?CS: The wardrobe really affects me, and the hair and make-up, and all of that. I felt like they were trying to make me look frumpy to make Jake look less attractive.[Laughs] He has this unattractive girlfriend, therefore you can believe he’s less attractive. I don’t know. That’s my own insecurities.But I did like that she wasn’t glamorous obviously in any regard. She was a working mother, and she was very practical. I got to be kind of cute in the beginning. I liked that she was this practical, sassy, no nonsense lady.

Q: What’s something about David Fincher that we don’t know?CS: Something about him that you don’t know? I don’t know. What do you know? [Laughs]

Q: Speaking of obsessions, he has them.CS: He does, yeah. He has a lot. And I liked how obsessive he was as a filmmaker. I felt like I was in really safe hands. I’m quite obsessive compulsive myself, and to know that he is aware of every inch of the frame and what’s going on, I felt very safe in his hands. But he was very friendly and warm actually and jokey. His little daughter, Phelix, would come to the set. It was a really nice set. He would get very angry and curse a lot which I kind of find sexy sometimes. [Laughs] He was just so in control. Sometimes, he would curse at people.

Q: How was working with Jake, and how did you guys create those two people together?CS: We had some rehearsals where we went through all of our scenes and talked through the scenes and the dialogue, and he was very active in rewriting or adjusting his dialogue. I’m not a writer. I’m happy with the lines you give me to a certain extent.But he was very active in that and he would come with new ideas for me, for my lines. [Laughs] He was very boyish and very funny. He kept the whole crew in stitches. They were all very charmed by him. He’s very creative. He has so much energy. He’s always bouncing off the walls. After 80 takes, of course, I think he would get bored a little bit, especially when it was my coverage, so he’d be switching up the lines and stuff. His mind is always very active.

Q: What’s it like working on a show that is more fast-paced, like ‘Big Love,’ compared to a film like this, where there are 80 takes?CS: As tedious as the 80 takes was, I liked it because you just got to try so many more things. You got to just experiment with it. The 80 takes wasn’t just because of performance, obviously. He’s so technical that a lot of it had to do with camera moves and lighting or background. With the children, it was obviously very difficult, so any of the scenes with the kids, there’s always lots of [takes]. The pace of the show is just insane. What they make us do is unfair. It really is. [Laughs] There’s all this chaos and then they’re like, "Okay, roll sound, we’re shooting, now act!” It’s very hard.

Q: Who is your favorite designer of clothing?CS: I don’t buy anything new. I only buy vintage.Q: You said you were too disturbed to finish the book, but you liked the ‘Zodiac’ script. What was the draw? Why did you sign up?CS: Fincher. For me, throughout my career, I’ve worked with Lars von Trier, Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch -- we made a short film together. I haven’t necessarily always liked the parts. It’s been more about the opportunity to work with them and be in one of their pictures. So, I like David Fincher. Like in "American Psycho,” my character shows more of the human side, and I felt like Melanie brought a bit of that to "Zodiac” too and I liked that.Source: www.Moviesonline.ca

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

"In the past three days, we've seen the many sides of Kirsten Dunst; ninja warrior, road menace -- and now we've got Kirsten Dunst, life coach.

The reluctant paparazzi magnet was spotted at Chateau Marmont (a known pap/star hot-spot), where she was not exactly thrilled to see cameras, telling TMZ, "Oh, look who's being rude and filming us all, what an exciting life you have, what a great job," before swatting the camera away.

Not satisfied with her run-in, Dunst came back to the photog moments later, again hit the camera, and told our photographer, "Go find your passion!" See Videoclip, Source: Tmz.com

directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, inspired by a Jacque Prévert's poem "Chanson des escargots qui vont à l'enterrement". "I do believe that the myth of “Celebrity” is not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a powerful and fundamental part of a larger movement revolving around greed, apathy and hierarchy that is currently dragging us down, down, down, lower and scarier, and perhaps weaker than we’ve ever, ever been. Smile!"-Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

"The Academy hasn't picked the best film of the year as the Oscar winner in at least ten years, in my opinion, nor are they above handing the big prize to a film that's not only unworthy, but legitimately bad. [...] No matter which film walks away with Oscar -- whether it's Babel, The Departed, The Queen, Letters From Iwo Jima, or Little Miss Sunshine -- a really splendid work of art, Marie Antoinette, will go unrewarded. Normally, this is the part of the piece where I would launch into how all the critics were wrong and I was right, but the odd thing about the oversight of Marie is that the major critics seemingly agree with me.

Released back in October, before the calculated late-December releases begin muscling their way into the voters' memories, Marie was greeted by an ebullient four-star review by Roger Ebert. The Los Angeles Times' Carina Chocano seconded, calling the film "startlingly original," which it is.The Times A.O. Scott remarked -- "What to do for pleasure? Go see this movie, for starters."The Washington Post, Salon.com, The Hollywood Reporter, The Philadelphia Enquirer, Entertainment Weekly, and smaller outlets like Slant.com all heaped praise on the film, and declared it to be among the best of the year.Add in the pedigree of the director -- an important young filmmaker and prior Oscar winner, Sofia Coppola -- and it seems like the film would have been swept along by the tide until finally walking away the big winner tonight. Instead, the film will have only one opportunity to win an Oscar, in the throwaway category of Best Achievement in Costume Design. Yes, the costume work is good, but let's not kid ourselves -- it's a booby prize for a serious film, if it's won at all.The most charitable explanation for why Marie was snubbed on the Best Picture and Best Director fronts this year would be that the Academy members have simply become too involved in 'protecting' the Awards from criticism. As we've seen this year with some Best Picture nominees, the studios are not above coopting the general media to more or less force the Academy to either nominate a desired film or be prepared to pay hell for it in 'Why did Film X get snubbed?' stories. The Academy is notoriously vulnerable to media pressures, and probably simply couldn't fit Marie in amongst all their more important considerations, like making sure Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and other luminaries get their supposedly just desserts. [...]

A less charitable and more likely explanation is that the voters simply no longer pay enough attention to the tide of films that come rolling by each year to pick out the best ones. They have a foggy idea of what they are being bashed over the head to nominate, so they roll over without much of a fuss and nominated it. They know enough to zig where the Globes zag, but that's just a self-preservation instinct, not any sign of moxy. I have to tune in and watch the Oscars tonight, but don't mistake that for actually thinking that what we're covering is actually anything of great importance. It's high-school writ large -- the bullies and the popular kids will muscle their way onto the main stage, while the special kids will sit back in the shadows and wait to be recognized later. The special, eggshell world created in "Marie Antoinette" is a remarkable filmic idea brought to life and one that doesn't need the stamp of approval of a bunch of 70-year old retired make-up stylists." -by Ryan Stewart.Source: www.Cinematical.com

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Best Motion Picture of the YearWinner: The Departed (2006) - Graham KingBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading RoleWinner: Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006)Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading RoleWinner: Helen Mirren for The Queen (2006)Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting RoleWinner: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine (2006)Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting RoleWinner: Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006)Best Achievement in DirectingWinner: Martin Scorsese for The Departed (2006)